It seems quite obvious to me that one of the many impacts of the rat’s actions when moving to Liverpool in a PSR world, was to affect our previously pretty good record of gradually improving the age profile and contractual situation of the whole Newcastle United squad.

I recently listed all the players that played over 10 league games for Eddie Howe by the end of his first season here, and virtually all of them have since departed, in deals everyone agrees were good business. Are the Eddie out people even aware of such things? I fear not.

And in a PSR world, any team building from a position of weakness, gets their pants pulled down. Therefore making it even harder to get back to an even keel, if the supposed remedy is to buy for the sake of buying, or replacing a manager because of similar reasons.

In a PSR world, perhaps it’s better to bide your time, keep your already proven manager, resist the urge to panic buy and rip up expensively assembled squads for an immediate return to the glory days, and instead just go again in due course.

Perhaps when you have had the benefit...